[2nd] What you guys liked or disliked in MtAw 2nd ?

[Sp4rt01]

Like the title say, what you guys liked or disliked of what we already know from DaveB development posts ?

PRO:

1. The new REACH system. I really like the philosophy of more Paradox, more power. Good work DaveB !
2. Praticies putting the limits of what every dot of arcanum can do (the reach system looks like a good idea to make the game balancing) + Unmaking spells destroying instead of causing damage;
3. Legacy with a downgrade of Gnosis requeriment;
4. Arcanum Attainments;
5. Prime new Purview;
6. Yantras and rotes/praxis;
7. Order merits;
8. Order flaws (I really like the idea, even disliking the execution);

CON:

1. No relevant changes in Orders. Orders looks like a bunch of random ideas put together and continue not making any sense to me;
2. 6 dots of Arcanum to new mage !!!!!!! C'mon DaveB, why the hell everyone template of Nwod and oWod begin the game with 3 dots of magical power (discipline, gift, etc) and Magebegin the game overpowered? Arcanum already are more powerfull thaan other power, why not put every template in the same league of 3 dot of power (this problem already exist in Ascension, cant believe that they dont change that)?
3. Supernal Summon Attainment !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hell, worst idea ever !!!! Every 3 dot mage is pokemon master, c'mon this kill the Wod mood to me. If you want to be a summoner buy some Spirit.
4. Death Arcanum, I really dislike tha idea of this Arcanum, Spirit Arcana dont make sense when you can go to other world with Mind(Astral)/Death(Underworld) and summon Ghost/Goetia without Spirit Arcana (lets face the true, you can summon any ephemeral being that you need as a ghost or goetia). In other words, having 3 Arcana to summon ephemeral beings is like split the Forces Arcana into Fire/Wind/Freeze/Kinetic Arcana;
5. XP cost of Arcana is to low...
6. Lex Magica and Adamantine Hand. AA give the idea that AA are only "fighter class", it would be better to give Oath to AA in my opinion. Lex Magica I dont like because the idea that SL is a pseudo-Invictus, really dont like the concept that SL create the laws and SL judge.);

NEUTRAL:

1. ART. Its one hundred times better than Kaluta (dont want to see Kaluta in a MtAw book, never again !), but its a boring piece of art. C'mon, shown some obvious magic ! This is a problem from nearly every book of WW, because they try to shown what a mage look instead of what a mage do. Free council cover art is what I consider a good and inspired piece of art.
2. Want to see a increase in Gnosis requeriment to buy Arcana. I like the Ascension rule of no Arcana with more dots than Arete;

[malonkey1]

Like the title say, what you guys liked or disliked of what we already know from DaveB development posts ?

CON:
No relevant changes in Orders. Orders looks like a bunch of random ideas put together and continue not making any sense to me;

Really? I've found the Orders have fairly cohesive ideologies:

• Free Council: Humanity is Magical. Destroy servants of the Lie
• Adamantine Arrow: Life is Conflict. Learn to fight.
• Guardians of the Veil: Magic is a Privilege, not a Right.
• Mysterium: Knowledge is worth finding for its own sake.
• Silver Ladder: Mages must rule Humanity.
• Seers: The Exarchs already won, might as well serve them and get something out of it.

6 dots of Arcanum to new mage !!!!!!! C'mon DaveB, why the hell everyone template of Nwod and oWod begin the game with 3 dots of magical power (discipline, gift, etc) and Magebegin the game overpowered? Arcanum already are more powerfull thaan other power, why not put every template in the same league of 3 dot of power (this problem already exist in Ascension, cant believe that they dont change that)?

Keep in mind that starting Arcana still have a dot limit. so you're not whipping out advanced magics from character creation. Plus, Mages are supposed to be on a high power level. The World of Darkness was designed for mechanical compatibility, not power balance between splats.

Death Arcanum, I really dislike tha idea of this Arcanum, Spirit Arcana dont make sense when you can go to other world with Mind(Astral)/Death(Underworld) and summon Ghost/Goetia without Spirit Arcana (lets face the true, you can summon any ephemeral being that you need as a ghost or goetia). In other words, having 3 Arcana to summon ephemeral beings is like split the Forces Arcana into Fire/Wind/Freeze/Kinetic Arcana;

Death covers more than just ghosts, you realize. It covers all of death. It's entropy, change and shadows as much as is it spooky scary skeletons. Plus, Spirits and Astrals are different. a Spirit is a reflection of a concept as it is. Astrals are reflections of human perceptions of those concepts. A love spirit may have traits that reflect parts of love that most people don't associate with love. Plus, controlling a spirit is easier and safer than coalescing an Astral into reality.

Lex Magica and Adamantine Hand. AA give the idea that AA are only "fighter class", it would be better to give Oath to AA in my opinion. Lex Magica I dont like because the idea that SL is a pseudo-Invictus, really dont like the concept that SL create the laws and SL judge.);

There's no "fighter class." Yeah, AA is the most focused on combat, but they aren't just about combat. They are about conflict. Conflict can be found in the ring and battlefield, but you can also find it in the courtroom or the boardroom just as easily.

The whole point of Silver Ladder is that they want to be the Mage-Kings of the world. Of course they're going to be making rules.

[arthexis]

I wonder why people are still so stuck up in Ascension territory and bring it in to Awakening discussions. Its not like you cannot still play that game if you like it. Hey it even has a new book out. I hear this almost every day or at least once a week.

I won't go over every argument, just two of them.

The 6 dots Argument: Despite having lots of flexibility, other supernaturals have some of their most useful powers built right in and have no need to cast spells to activate them. Vampires are my favorite example. Before taking Disciplines into account, a vampire has access to: instantaneously regenerating or boosting physical stats with Vitae, downgrading damage, fuel stat is far easier to replenish than Mana, hightened senses, capacity to assert dominance / seduce / terrorize targets simply by spending willpower, and also being motherfucking blood drinking immortals. Mages get... Mage Sight, and it costs Mana. Other attainments come into play if you have the correct Arcana dots only. What makes a Mage is being able to use a variety of spells, and thus you need some dots to play around and make that happen. Furthermore Disciplines combine 3 stats into a roll, but most spell only combine 2, thus Mages have less success rate with magic despite the flexibility. So, don't take the flexibility away, it is kinda core to the game experience.

The Death argument: Well, you could say the same about Spirit in Ascension. It never made sense to me why you needed to combine Spirit + Entropy to do ghost stuff. Also, in Ascension you would need Spirit + Mind if you want to do something like the Goetics from Awakening too. CWoD already had some kind of nebulous division between ephemerals, and nWoD simply made the categorization clearer. I agree that the Core book presentation of Spirit/Death wasn't 100% clear, but it has become much better over the years and there are some great supplements for all the basic ephemeral types now. Furthermore, each ephemeral type has a very different flavor to it. Ghosts have anchors, Spirits do not. Spirits have Influences over a variety of things, Ghosts only through Anchors. Astral Realms details a bunch of Goetic / Astral things that are unlike Ghosts and Spirits. In essence (no pun intended) having more different kinds of ephemerals to play around with can enhance the feeling of depth in the world. In fact, as a Mage ST I love that they keep adding new books with new strange things and entity categories, every book adds new stuff that a Mage can investigate.

[WHW]

Yeah, Spirit is much more than just Spirits, and Death is much more than just Ghosts. While Life is the Thyrsus Arcana that allows you to interact with animated, living world, Spirit is not only the "mental" part of the Watchtower, but also "material, unliving, unanimated" part of it. Pretty much every single item has a Spirit. By focusing just on Spirits in Spirit, you are willingly throwing out half of your options.

As for Order Merits - honestly, I hope that you anyone fulfilling the Requirements can train in them. Giving people reasons to have Status in multiple organisations is always good, because it creates conflicts of loyalties and interests, *and* gives you reason to seek friendship with organisations other than your homebase.
At least, that's for Lex Magica and Adamantine Hand. I have harder time imagining Mask and Mysterium Merit being open for shopping. But first two? Sure, just get a dot of status, train under us for some time, and then let's keep being friends. We will count on you, too. I know this is probably not how it will be in the book, but this is the way I'm going to GM it, unless book convices me otherwise.

[Michael]

It's a 2nd edition; not a completely new game. I agree with some of your points but they're largely inherent in the game already. Generally, the two WoDs haven't used new editions to create wildly different settings. They refine what's already there.

Plus most of them are workable enough that I don't really care too much. I mean, I kinda agree that the Death/spirit divide feels kinda artificial but, it works interestingly into the setting that taking it out would require a huge amount of rewriting and reconceptualisation; and I doubt it would be worth the effort.

it would be better to give Oath to AA in my opinion.

That's not a bad idea.

As for Order Merits - honestly, I hope that you anyone fulfilling the Requirements can train in them. Giving people reasons to have Status in multiple organisations is always good, because it creates conflicts of loyalties and interests, *and* gives you reason to seek friendship with organisations other than your homebase.

I get the reasoning, but I don't really agree. I think the point of both is that you're internalising and embodying the ethos of the Order. To me it seems reasonable that you can't embody two different castes. To work, I think you'd need to change how the Orders work; get rid of the Atlantean symbolism (you might be fine with that, but I can see why the writers aren't).

[Kumiko]

Like the title say, what you guys liked or disliked of what we already know from DaveB development posts ?

PRO:

1. The new REACH system. I really like the philosophy of more Paradox, more power. Good work DaveB !
2. Praticies putting the limits of what every dot of arcanum can do (the reach system looks like a good idea to make the game balancing) + Unmaking spells destroying instead of causing damage;
3. Legacy with a downgrade of Gnosis requeriment;
4. Arcanum Attainments;
5. Prime new Purview;
6. Yantras and rotes/praxis;
7. Order merits;
8. Order flaws (I really like the idea, even disliking the execution);

CON:

1. No relevant changes in Orders. Orders looks like a bunch of random ideas put together and continue not making any sense to me;
2. 6 dots of Arcanum to new mage !!!!!!! C'mon DaveB, why the hell everyone template of Nwod and oWod begin the game with 3 dots of magical power (discipline, gift, etc) and Magebegin the game overpowered? Arcanum already are more powerfull thaan other power, why not put every template in the same league of 3 dot of power (this problem already exist in Ascension, cant believe that they dont change that)?
3. Supernal Summon Attainment !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hell, worst idea ever !!!! Every 3 dot mage is pokemon master, c'mon this kill the Wod mood to me. If you want to be a summoner buy some Spirit.
4. Death Arcanum, I really dislike tha idea of this Arcanum, Spirit Arcana dont make sense when you can go to other world with Mind(Astral)/Death(Underworld) and summon Ghost/Goetia without Spirit Arcana (lets face the true, you can summon any ephemeral being that you need as a ghost or goetia). In other words, having 3 Arcana to summon ephemeral beings is like split the Forces Arcana into Fire/Wind/Freeze/Kinetic Arcana;
5. XP cost of Arcana is to low...
6. Lex Magica and Adamantine Hand. AA give the idea that AA are only "fighter class", it would be better to give Oath to AA in my opinion. Lex Magica I dont like because the idea that SL is a pseudo-Invictus, really dont like the concept that SL create the laws and SL judge.);

NEUTRAL:

1. ART. Its one hundred times better than Kaluta (dont want to see Kaluta in a MtAw book, never again !), but its a boring piece of art. C'mon, shown some obvious magic ! This is a problem from nearly every book of WW, because they try to shown what a mage look instead of what a mage do. Free council cover art is what I consider a good and inspired piece of art.
2. Want to see a increase in Gnosis requeriment to buy Arcana. I like the Ascension rule of no Arcana with more dots than Arete;

Other supernaturals don't need dots in power sets as much as mages given they have big time inherent powers while mages get mage sight and attainments which cost mana per use. With mage sight likely just tempting you to really get yourself in bad situations, like a cat.

Death is not just about ghosts it's about all definitions of Death....entropy, shadows, lies, ghosts, souls etc.

Fuck exponential experience costs What use is being a navel gazing hipster in a game about power, wisdom, corruption and the balance between them if you can't actually be a person with cosmic power that literally is above the law as far as anyone not in the club accepts? Mages work from a completely different baseline hence paradox.

Summoning is classic wizardry deal with it. Because it's straight dangerous and requires favor trading so you damn well bet a mage should get huge benefits for taking the risk.

I'm so tired of people thinking the Free Council is all that. Awesome they're rebels that focus on culture for power, a culture defiled and twisted by the Lie. Great move right? They have serious flaws and this isn't Mage the Ascension. Every order and path can do the science and technomagic thing if they want to. There are legacies devoted to it in fact. If I were a mage that saw the supernal everywhere, yet forever beyond my reach the last thing I'd do is immerse myself into some particular culture while knowing it's a defiled, twisted version of itself like a sewer. I'd rather mix and match the parts that haven't been defiled or twisted whenever possible.

I have no idea why....

1. Magic is conflict
2. Magic is humanity's birthright
3. Magic is fragile and not for the ignorant
4. Magic is knowledge, knowledge is magic
5. Magic is found in humanity and their endeavour s
6. I got my mine so fuck you ignorant dogs. It's not that bad to be eating at The Outback while you fools eat at McDonald's. We're all in the same jail anyway

Isn't damn clear.

As for order merits? What makes you think that some mages don't pick up several of them from different orders if they can get away with it? It's how the GoV exist for god sake. Just don't get caught. But at a certain point you have to go all in to get the real benefits just like the Seers. There's always a point of no return no matter which order is involved. Much like how and when you use magic just know the risks and be prepared for which path you choose when paradox occurs.

[Penta]

Supernal Summon Attainment !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hell, worst idea ever !!!! Every 3 dot mage is pokemon master, c'mon this kill the Wod mood to me. If you want to be a summoner buy some Spirit.

The Supernal Summon Attainment does not make you a "pokemon master" in any sense. Supernal beings are immaterial, made of living symbolism. You can bargain with them, and get them to perform spell like effects, but they can't fight your enemies physically like a materialized Spirit can. Also, being able to summon them does not mean that you are able to control them. While a mage with the Spirit Arcanum can just force a spirit to do his bidding, a supernal summoning always needs bargaining, or at least it did in first edition.

EDIT: The other negative points have already been adressed sufficiently by other posters I think.

[Isator Levi]

Come now, let's not make this solely a thread about arguing against a single person's disliked details.

I'll need to check back through the blogs and previews to see if there is anything that is not to my fancy; I'm sure there has to be at least something.

Watch this space.

[WHW]

I understand why these merits are great from writer stand point. I don't like their restriction from player and game perspective, because it basically punishes you for creating characters that can't or don't want to use their Order Merit. If you want to make combat mage from Mysterium, who is punching people and then casting spells at them, you are suffering opportunity costs from not being Adamantine Arrow. If you are a Silver Ladderite who doesn't care about being Magical Magistrate and does not want to pour points into Consilium/Silver Ladder status, you are suffering because your "Order Merit perk" is useless for you. Your Adamantine Arrow lawyer who carries a gun for self defense and acts as a magical policeman won't even look at Adamantine Hand.
By opening up them for anyone meeting requirements (which, again, requires them to have Order Status - which is *at least* being respected ally and friend of the Order), your Mysterium adventurous archeologist can whip up some awesome Adamantine Hand manuevers while kicking these temple snakes away, and your Adamantine Arrow lawyer can be THE LAW. And again, for both of these, I can see these orders actually *agreeing* to share these "secrets" - Adamantine Arrow being there to serve, and if someone is *capable* of learning it and surviving, then well, so be it.
Lex Magica being taught is probably most in character, because it means that maybe while Silver Ladder person won't hold the office, Ladder thinking will still be there. You basically infect someone with your ideas on magical law and they spread it. Silver Ladder don't want everyone to be them, but to make everyone think like them and agree with them; and if for some reason person holding local "magical law enforcement office" isn't Silver Ladder but Guardian, if you taught him this, it doesn't really matter; because he is following the Silver Ladder thinking. It's their victory.
Also, from another perspective: you give members of Orders reason to interact with other Orders. They have something you want and could use. It creates dynamics, needs and wants, economics of favors...basically, a living community that has reasons to go and play with each other, instead of being hermits in their own societies.
From game perspective, its' more viable archetypes and more variety, plus making each merit more "worth the paper" it's printed on.

Mysterium order merit and Masks are much, much harder for me to see taught out of order, though.

[Mrmdubois]

It should be noted we don't know exactly what the Mysterium merit looks like right now. There was mention of changing it a bit after the backlash from what was previewed.

[Menace]

@3. If you try treating a supernal entity as a pokemon your in for big, Big, BIG trouble. Though i must say I'm partly dissapointed in attainments. Some are cool but i don't like the lack of variety in certain cases (1st and 3rd dot attainments are the same all over the board) and some just don't feel like they matter much.

I also feel the Yantra limit per Gnosis is too restricting but I understand why it's there. Also Yantras feel a bit limited in the scope of what can be one.

Though in general from what i read in the development blogs there is much more things i like but this thread is about complaining so....

[Mrmdubois]

I'd have preferred one yantra per Gnosis because it would be that much simpler to remember. The idea to limit them was a good idea though or we'd be in the same spot as the Dresen Files game wracking our brains for ways to get just that one more +2.

[BlueBiscuit]

There's very little I don't like of what we've been shown so far, and it's unfair to judge things we've only heard about, but let's see:

• I don't like how the presentation of the Atlantis myth has changed in some parts. In particular I hate that one example character in the Mysterium preview called the Awakened city a "Lie" with the capital letter. I know, I know, I've already heard every argument for it, and read DaveB's position on it on several forums, but still raises my hackles, and no, I'm not interested in someone trying to argue it with me, so please don't.
• Some of the spoiled order merits: the new Adamantine Hand is very likely much more useful and balanced the 1e AH (which had that dumb last dot, which required Archmastery to be usable), but it's also incredibly boring; the Masque merit is the same, with being a lot more mechanically engaging and worth the XP, but I loved the 49 archetypal Masques and their chapter in the GotV orderbook, so new merit leaves me un-enthusiastic; it's mostly the same refrain with the new Prelacy (except for one thing that I'm going to outright change: Mystery Command is something that any Seer should be able to have, not just Prelates): more concise and direct, but also more uniform, with pretty much only the Crown (and the Sword a bit) really differentiating between a Prelate of the Father and one of the Eye. Now, I know why all this is this way: they wanted to get all the Order's unique merits and tricks right in the core, and DaveB has often said that they had issues with wordcount because they wanted to fit everything they could. The new Masque is of course an artifact of the Virtue/Vice system of the GMC, and the old Prelacy were arguably too powerful (but fittingly so, IMO) and were harder to homebrew than Legacies, while the new one simply requires you come come up with a single Attainment to create say the Prelacy of someone dedicated to the Prophet. I'm still going to miss it.

And that's it, I think. Pretty much everything else we've been spoiled or that Dave has hinted at has ranged from "Awesome!" to "I'm interested, but I'll wait and see before I say more". The only other thing I don't like is the Free Council, but I don't like them in 1e either, so no real change there.

I'm pretty excited for the 2nd edition of my favourite WoD gameline, and I hope it goes on to have as many supplements as 1e did!

[Solar]

Everything is awesome other than Wisdom, IMO. Massively improvement across the board, and it's not like Wisdom is worse than it was before.

[LokiRavenSpeak]

The 6 dots Argument: Despite having lots of flexibility, other supernaturals have some of their most useful powers built right in and have no need to cast spells to activate them. Vampires are my favorite example. Before taking Disciplines into account, a vampire has access to: instantaneously regenerating or boosting physical stats with Vitae, downgrading damage, fuel stat is far easier to replenish than Mana, hightened senses, capacity to assert dominance / seduce / terrorize targets simply by spending willpower, and also being motherfucking blood drinking immortals. Mages get... Mage Sight, and it costs Mana. Other attainments come into play if you have the correct Arcana dots only. What makes a Mage is being able to use a variety of spells, and thus you need some dots to play around and make that happen. Furthermore Disciplines combine 3 stats into a roll, but most spell only combine 2, thus Mages have less success rate with magic despite the flexibility. So, don't take the flexibility away, it is kinda core to the game experience.

And mage can have spells (unless i miss some preview) running 24/7. I dont see what flexibility has to do with getting forces 6 and blowing a city with a radiation blast.

[*]Legacy with a downgrade of Gnosis requeriment;[*]Arcanum Attainments;[*]Yantras and rotes/praxis;[*]Order flaws (I really like the idea, even disliking the execution);

This is all pro for me, i love that yantras as a way to add some flavor to how bland mages then to be while i would preffer that they be a must instead of optional its good.

Another pro for me is rotes, thanks you getting rid of the whole "attribute + skill + arcanum"

[*]No relevant changes in Orders. Orders looks like a bunch of random ideas put together and continue not making any sense to me;

Yeah, this is con for me. While they fixed the free council from its 1st democracy propaganda they didnt fix the guardian of the veil with their jebus.

[*]6 dots of Arcanum to new mage !!!!!!! C'mon DaveB, why the hell everyone template of Nwod and oWod begin the game with 3 dots of magical power (discipline, gift, etc) and Magebegin the game overpowered? Arcanum already are more powerfull thaan other power, why not put every template in the same league of 3 dot of power (this problem already exist in Ascension, cant believe that they dont change that)?

What do you mean by this? That a starting PC can potentially buy arcanum 6? Or that a mage can get it at chargen?

Also this is something i think they havent fixed, that power creep on the lines some needed (Werewolf) some didnt (Vampire) and i think mage was in the latter. It ties with the flawed argument that mage is not a game in which player struggle to overcome obstacles but one which they will pass obstacles but its on the hands of the DM to put unforseen consequences.

[*]Supernal Summon Attainment !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Hell, worst idea ever !!!! Every 3 dot mage is pokemon master, c'mon this kill the Wod mood to me. If you want to be a summoner buy some Spirit.

They dont work the same way and that was something in 1ed. At arcanum 3 you could summon your path pokemon.

[*]Death Arcanum, I really dislike tha idea of this Arcanum, Spirit Arcana dont make sense when you can go to other world with Mind(Astral)/Death(Underworld) and summon Ghost/Goetia without Spirit Arcana (lets face the true, you can summon any ephemeral being that you need as a ghost or goetia). In other words, having 3 Arcana to summon ephemeral beings is like split the Forces Arcana into Fire/Wind/Freeze/Kinetic Arcana;

Uhmm, how exactly do i summon a fire spirit or a spirit of the city with mind or death?

[*]Lex Magica and Adamantine Hand. AA give the idea that AA are only "fighter class", it would be better to give Oath to AA in my opinion. Lex Magica I dont like because the idea that SL is a pseudo-Invictus, really dont like the concept that SL create the laws and SL judge.);

I kinda dislike this, i would preffer a more in dept merit system for the orders to make them different but i guess that dont fit in the core.

[/LIST]NEUTRAL:

1. ART. Its one hundred times better than Kaluta (dont want to see Kaluta in a MtAw book, never again !), but its a boring piece of art. C'mon, shown some obvious magic ! This is a problem from nearly every book of WW, because they try to shown what a mage look instead of what a mage do. Free council cover art is what I consider a good and inspired piece of art.

1. This is a dislike for me, i love kaluta for mage his art make me come back to mage time and time again.
2. Want to see a increase in Gnosis requeriment to buy Arcana. I like the Ascension rule of no Arcana with more dots than Arete;

[/QUOTE]

I'd have preferred one yantra per Gnosis because it would be that much simpler to remember. The idea to limit them was a good idea though or we'd be in the same spot as the Dresen Files game wracking our brains for ways to get just that one more +2.

This is pro for me.

Plus, Mages are supposed to be on a high power level. The World of Darkness was designed for mechanical compatibility, not power balance between splats.

This is a big con for me.